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Stunning proposal could save all the fish of the world

A new report shows there's a way to double population of fish by 2050.

A team of scientists and economists have published a potentially huge study that suggests that we could save not only the fish of the world, but also fisheries.

Scientists from the University of California – Santa Barbara, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the University of Washington have compiled a database of 4,500 world fisheries, and used bioeconomic models to show that we can have our fish and eat them too in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, according to an Environmental Defense Fund statement.

All it would take is management reforms in global fisheries, and fisheries could increase their take to more than 16 million metric tons, or $53 billion in profit, and 619 MMT in biomass relative to business as usual. Also, it would take less than 10 years to reach these targets, scientists say.

The reforms would include rights-based fishery management, where quotes are set to ensure the right population levels, leading to an increase in price and a lower of fishing costs. This would be superior to the current “race to fish” situation where fishermen feel they must catch as much fish as possible, they argue.

“The results suggest that institutional reforms, like the implementation of secure fishing rights would yield the most significant results for the world’s fisheries,” the statement reads. “Fishing rights, which end the desperate race for fish by asking fishermen and women to adhere to strict, science-based catch limits in exchange for a right to a share of the catch or to a traditional fishing area, are already being used to great effect in places like Australia, Belize, Chile, Denmark, Namibia, and the United States.”